Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Saturday

Tali Fraser

The point of protest

The protest in Manchester today was supposed to be static and socially distanced. While that may not have worked out so well – leaving me somewhat yearning for Israeli efficiency as seen in the protests against Netanyahu – it was still a success. The vast majority were wearing facemasks and those who quite clearly wanted to distance were respected. The protest was peaceful (as far as I could tell). Police kept a respectful distance and protesters continued their respectful behaviour. For that reason, it might not get much coverage: you’re more likely to read about those who deface monuments or confront the police. But to focus on them, now, is to

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Corbyn takes the revolution online

Three faces peered out of the screen. At noon, last Saturday, Facebook hosted a digital debate between a trio of grandees from the Stop the War Coalition. Former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, appeared in a plain white room that matched his open-necked shirt. The novelist Arundhati Roy spoke from Delhi. And the veteran activist, Tariq Ali, began the session by telling viewers that thousands were watching all around the globe. The great campaigners spent 70 minutes trying to create world peace from their kitchen tables. Tariq Ali is no longer the dashing figure of the 1960s who won fame protesting against the Vietnam war. A snowy mane now crowns his head. And

Tom Slater Tom Slater

The march of progressive censorship

It’s official: criticising Black Lives Matter is now a sackable offence, even here in the British Isles, thousands of miles away from the social conflict currently embroiling the US. As protesters again fill the streets of a rainy London on Saturday, as part of a now internationalised backlash against the brutal police killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, those who criticise them do so at their peril – as two men have recently found out. Stu Peters, a presenter on Manx Radio, has been suspended, pending an investigation, for an on-air exchange with a black caller. He said nothing racist, you can read the transcript for yourself. What he did

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Boris Johnson needs to get a grip

It’s pointless to deny that the government is currently performing poorly across a wide range of fronts – and I say that as someone who voted Conservative with enthusiasm in December and who wishes the government well. Despite the shrill claims of some, the onset of an epidemic of a horrible new disease would clearly have been testing for any administration – which largely explains why some things are coming apart at the seams. But another highly damaging factor is now at work: the rolling out of obviously half-baked ‘blunt instrument’ policies that have not been subject to even the most basic of sensible refinements. For instance, the policy of

Friday

John Connolly John Connolly

Andy Burnham sets out his stall against local lockdowns

On Friday, researchers at the University of Cambridge working with Public Health England estimated that the R number – Covid’s rate of transmission – has risen above 1 in the North West, meaning the virus may be starting to spread in the region. In every other region of England, the study suggested, the R number is either at 1 or below. In response, Matt Hancock confirmed at the Downing Street press conference that the government’s strategy, if the virus begins to spread in a particular region, is to introduce local lockdowns (although the Health Secretary believes the R number is still below 1 in the North West at this stage).

Steerpike Steerpike

BBC media editor apologises for ‘unforgivable’ blunder

Another day, another BBC apology. But Mr S isn’t convinced this one is actually needed. The BBC’s new boss was announced this morning and it fell to the corporation’s media editor Amol Rajan to fill in viewers about who Tim Davie is. Rajan explained Davie had a ‘hellishly, hellishly difficult job’ in manning the ship over the next few years. All for £575,000 a year. Poor Tim.  Rajan then told viewers that Davie was privately educated. He explained: ‘He’s a father of three, marathon runner, big Crystal Palace fan. Interestingly, he was privately educated before going on to Cambridge and he’s someone who had a career in marketing…’ But after coming off air, an urgent

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Can America’s 2.5 million jobs miracle be replicated in Britain?

The US economy created 2.5 million jobs last month – the biggest monthly jobs gain since records began a century ago, albeit only a partial recovery from the 22 million jobs lost during lockdown. These figures have blown expectations out of the water. Economists were predicting yet more unemployment: the consensus was unemployment reaching 8.3 million, or 20 per cent in May, up from 14.7 per cent in April. Defying the odds, unemployment actually fell to 13 per cent, signalling an unexpectedly early start in the rebounding of the American economy. The biggest winners were workers in hospitality, who made up almost half of the new jobs, followed by construction. ‘This is

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is it time for the government to admit its mistakes?

16 min listen

With an NHS tracing app not fully up and running until autumn, contact tracing seems like the latest in a series of events where the government has over-promised and under-delivered. Is it time for the government to admit the mistakes it has made in dealing with the pandemic?

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

Are the Tories really on the side of Britain’s farmers?

It might seem hard to believe it was just a matter of months ago that senior Treasury advisor Tim Leunig made headlines when he suggested in leaked emails that Britain doesn’t need farmers. The ‘food sector isn’t critically important to the UK’, he wrote. Then Covid-19 descended, and the British farming industry was deemed vital again. With supermarket shelves empty due to panic buyers, we were reminded how important it is that we are able produce at least a proportion of the food we need at home. The Prime Minister took to pointing out the strength of our ‘farm to fork’ supply chain that kept supermarkets stocked. It’s strange, then, that

Steerpike Steerpike

Is Piers Morgan changing his mind on lockdown?

It was the plot-twist in the Covid drama nobody expected. At the start of the pandemic, Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan quickly became the self-appointed Robespierre of the lockdown movement. Anyone who broke the rules, or did not support tighter restrictions, was in his eyes a killer, responsible for untold deaths as the virus spread. But is Morgan now realising things are more complicated than that. This week Morgan criticised Labour’s Barry Gardiner for breaking lockdown to attend a non-socially distanced Black Lives Matter protest. Then Guido Fawkes revealed that Morgan’s son had attended a Black Lives Matter demo in London. At the moment it is still forbidden to congregate

Roger Awan-Scully

Welsh Tories are misreading the mood on Covid

Responding to the Covid-19 pandemic has imposed great strains on governments and leading politicians. But, initially at least, the reaction of publics in much of the world was a supportive one; in a time of peril, many of them ‘rallied to the flag’. In some places, though, it was not entirely clear to which flag people should rally. Where there are devolved or regional governments of different parties to the national government, it was not obvious who might benefit from any public goodwill – or later on, from a possible backlash if the public judged government handling of the crisis to be inadequate. In Scotland, the evidence thus far seems

John Hayes

Abortions for minor disabilities need to stop

There is no doubt that the way disability is regarded in Britain has changed for the better. People with disabilities now enjoy legal protections that 25 years ago were absent. Yet for all the progress, there remains a glaring omission: a shameful contradiction in the legal framework that gives life to disability equality. Since 1990, we have differentiated between those diagnosed with disabilities and their non-disabled contemporaries by allowing people with disabilities to be aborted right up to birth, whereas there is a time limit of 24 weeks for the non-disabled. You might think we would have addressed this by now, given the increasingly positive shared view of disability. Most people rightly

Thursday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Our duty to Hong Kong: time to grant citizenship

40 min listen

As China looks to push through its national security law, is it time to offer Hong Kongers a way out? (01:00) And with the Black Lives Matter protests continuing to rage in America, can they unseat Donald Trump? (15:30) And last, do animals have culture? (29:10)

Matthew Lynn

A no-deal Brexit won’t mean a shortage of medicines

Covid-19 has hit us harder than just about any country in the world. Lockdown has been eased chaotically, and no one has any idea what the rules are any more. And now, on top of everything else, it looks as if we are about to run out of medicines if the government doesn’t mange to reach a trade deal with the European Union by the end of the year. According to the Financial Times today, the UK is running dangerously low on stockpiles of essential pharmaceuticals, and might well run out just as a second wave of the coronavirus hits, probably next winter. We need to import lots of medicine

James Forsyth James Forsyth

In many ways, the Covid inquiry has already begun

It is inevitable that there will be a public inquiry into the government’s handling of coronavirus at the end of all this – the death toll demands it. There is, as I say in the magazine this week, an interesting question about what kind of person should chair the inquiry. Leveson was a judge, Chilcot a former civil servant—and this showed in the kind of inquiries they led. There’s a view in government that, in the words of one secretary of state, ‘a lawyer would be the worst person to chair it as they will take it down the blame route’. In many ways, the government is conducting a rolling

Steerpike Steerpike

Newsnight’s dodgy coronavirus data

Last week, the BBC show Newsnight found itself in hot water, after its presenter Emily Maitlis was rebuked by the BBC for not showing due impartiality, when she opened the show with a broadside against Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson. You would think, therefore, that the programme would be on its best behaviour at the moment, and would make sure that it was reporting the facts correctly. Apparently not though. Yesterday evening, the programme included a segment in which it suggested that the UK’s daily death toll from Covid-19 was higher than every other country in the EU combined. The programme even displayed a graph prominently, to highlight the UK’s

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Badenoch bites back

Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch was having none of it in the Commons chamber this morning. SNP MP Alison Thewliss asked the minister about the ‘no recourse to public funds’ policy, which Boris Johnson was quizzed over at the liaison committee last week.  Safe to say, Badenoch wasn’t particularly happy with the line of questioning, accusing Thewliss of ‘confected outrage’ for social media clicks. Ouch. 

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Piers Morgan clashes with Rudy Giuliani

It was not a very good morning on Good Morning Britain. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani did an interview with Piers Morgan, and to say it did not go well is a major understatement. After some initial back-and-forth between Giuliani and Morgan, the conversation descended into a shouting match between Morgan and Rudy about guns, violence and policing in America. ‘You sound completely barking mad, do you know that?’ said Morgan. At which Rudy went bananas, and attacked Morgan for having failed as a journalist in America — a reference to Morgan’s unsuccessful stint as a CNN anchor. Things went from bad to worse as Rudy berated Piers Morgan for ‘helping